BF2S Forums The 'What Did You Buy Today' thread

uziq wrote:

think it may be time to finally upgrade my 5 year old iphone 13 mini. 18 pro looks perfectly ... fine. only problem is how to acquire an apple device in east asia. they all have the 'pervert alarm' shutter sound installed on their firmware by default.

As far as I know Australian phones don't have that, it would be un-Australian.

Or this?
I can just have the unit on my desk, keep the speakers for later, or buy the unit standalone
https://www.denon.com/en/product/mini-s … 41DAB.html

Dilbert_X wrote:

Due to various reasons I am going to need a CD player for work.
I don't see why I should wear out my irreplaceable ipod drowning out morons, or my phone really.
Was thinking about a record player but it would be over the top and fuckwits would jog my desk.

What setup will I need?

This looks nice,
https://addictedtoaudio.com.au/products … -cd-player

What amp or whatever would I need to go with it? I would like to have some tone controls.
Do I need a DAC? Pre-Amp? Amp?

Or anything from here. I have not heard of FiiO
https://addictedtoaudio.com.au/collections/cd-players

It will be used to drive my Bose over-ear wired headphones and mostly for Nickelback and Lady Gaga.

sorry just saw this. do you specifically listen on CDs? lots of new players are being made for gen-Z who are going gaga for retro. think sony walkman in 2026. most of those mobile players will have half-decent DACs in them already that can power 80% of headphones.

there are standalone media players if you’re firmly into the mp3 or streaming world. think an iPod but upgraded to 2026 storage and DAC quality. they also have lots of in-built EQ options if you want to adjust the sound to your taste.

you get into pre-amps and standalone desktop DACs, but that implies you have either a CD player or a laptop with music on it. and it’s overkill unless your headphones/earphones/speakers are at a certain level. good DACs run the gamut from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand, and you should be investing 3-4x that on the actual speakers or earphones tbh. the digital side of music conversion is pretty much a solved engineering problem nowadays tbh, having a standalone femtosecond clock with entire hadal zones of clear black signal floor will only make a 10% difference max over an iphone dongle you can get for 20 bucks.

for simplicity, you really can’t beat a good pair of IEMs and a good clear DAC. plenty of small bookshelf speakers will sound great without need for expensive amplifiers - active-powered speakers are every bit as good as passive ones nowadays, particularly in the sub-$1k bracket.

again, the streamer and hifi centre things are great if you’re playing regularly from multiple sources. if you wanted to combine CDs with web streaming in one device, it could do the trick. i’d again prioritise the speakers or earphones though, personally. that would bring a lot more joy.

you can’t go wrong looking second-hand for CD decks. the technology hasn’t really changed since the 1980s.

Last edited by uziq (2026-09-24 20:33:02)

OK, I'd prefer a graphic equaliser to treble and bass, what happened to them?

Dilbert_X wrote:

OK, hear me out.

Mostly I listen to my ipod at work, radio and CDs in the car, a bit tired of burning up my ipod and don't want to burn up my phone either.
An ipod doesn't have the oomph to drive over-ear headphones fully, a hifi amp is a different experience - do I want that at work though?
Plus I think I should spend a bit of money here and there for a few reasons.

A mid size discman would probably do the job but I've not really found anything.

I was looking at something like the Cambridge Audio CD player plus some combined DAC/Amp which I could potentially plug the ipod into also - I want at least treble and bass control, again not seen anything obvious.

The Denon thing actually seems to meet all the requirements, plus it has radio for when I'm really bored, I can get the box standalone or store the speakers and it can become my shed stereo when I retire.

I did want something shiny on my desk to be a conversation piece "ooh Dilbert whats that?" "Well let me tell you..."
I had thought about a turntable and amp but that seems OTT.

you're right that the standard dongle from an ipod/iphone won't power over ear headphones. a standalone media player would though, which come with much better outputs. or there's a range of small dongle DACs that will get you nearer to it. nothing beats a desktop headphone amplifier, of course, but that necessarily ties you to your ... desktop.

astell&kern do some really nice bits of kit for standalone digital media players. i'd guess the name is probably an intentional echo of bang&olufsen (the prices too):
http://www.astellnkern.com/cn/product/view.php?idx=138



there's loads of affordable DAC dongles to plug into your iphone/ipod or laptop via USB and upgrade the sound a bit. i use an english company called iFi but there's frankly cheaper and just as good ones on the market from chi-fi manufacturers.




w/r/t getting a full desktop set-up that covers streamer, DAC, headphone amp, etc. -- yep, the denon will definitely take care of that. don't cambridge audio themselves have a streamer unit too? they are all the rage nowadays for reasons you well elucidate. here are some good brand names from chi-fi that do very well specced stuff for cheaper than cambridge audio: FiiO, Topping, Qudelix.

a lot of the nicer streamer units will basically function as home servers/NAS devices for you, too, helping to store and transcode different media formats to a uniform output. i feel your pain about switching from a physical (CD or vinyl)-based library to my digital library. i was into ripping vinyl records through a top AD/DA converter for a while but it takes a whole afternoon to get a few albums into your computer that way. apart from fetishising extra-expensive cartridges and stylii, may as well just additionally buy the bloody digital files tbh.

Last edited by uziq (2026-09-28 07:36:22)